Testosterone-driven opera about love and sex — the adolescent experience. Operatic, dramatic, and a little shallow, it was quite a ride in my youth. Best experienced now with limited attention to the lyrics, which feel like an uncomfortable reminder of the world before the prefrontal cortex develops. Fun, but also a bit embarrassing. *A punchy ChatGPT summary of my statement above: A bombastic adolescent opera about sex and longing — thrilling in youth, cringey in hindsight.”

Thirteen milquetoast love songs that won’t shut up about baby. I skipped around each track for a few seconds, and almost every time I dropped in, there it was—baby, girl, or you, crooned on repeat. So thirteen tracks of ‘baby, girl, you’ on endless loop—romance Muzak with better sneakers

The Chronic then = lived experience, Dre promoting the gangsta life he came out of. The Chronic now = Dre wealthed up, still selling that life to kids who never lived it. The beats still hit, and musically it’s brilliant. But listening today it feels less like life and more like a lifestyle pitch, that unfortunately wrecks real people so his empire can cash in.